


Hope

by MurielJones



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Amputation, Castration, Hurt Sam, Hurt Sam Winchester, Incest, M/M, Mutilation, Permanent Injury, Rape, Wincest - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-04
Updated: 2016-11-04
Packaged: 2018-08-29 02:16:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,645
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8471710
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MurielJones/pseuds/MurielJones
Summary: John Winchester, convinced that Sam will become the boy-king, mutilates Sam to protect  him.  Dean saves Sam.  As Sams  research his father's motives the boys come to understand his reasoning, and take their own decisions.  Bobby does what he can to help.   This whole thing is gruesome, and violent, and not something I would usually write.  I had to force myself re-read it before posting it.  Its grim and the whole bunch of them are insane! Except Bobby (probably) and Jody Mills.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This is loosely, very loosely, based on a fairy tale "Silver Hands", which is a lovely, if somewhat gruesome fairy tale about purity and love. Yeah, I went a another direction with it. There is another wincest story based on Silver Hands, and its beautiful, and if you want beauty and true love, here's the link; http://archiveofourown.org/works/3232787/chapters/7040069

“Jesus, Sam?  Sammy?”

Sam doesn’t speak, can’t speak, too shocked, too scared, too confused.

“Sam?”

Dean would ask who did this, except he knows who, except he knew it was coming, except he never believed John Winchester would mutilate his own boy.

Dean runs a hand over Sam’s hair, holds Sam’s artery tight,  tries not to look at Sam’s right arm, doesn’t want to look between Sam’s legs for what he knows will be missing—John may have thought he had a good reason, he may have thought he was saving Sam from death, from a fate worse than death, saving the world, but Sam is just 22, and just – six months ago -  lost his girlfriend, and was just defiled, mutilated and castrated by his own father while his brother, beaten, left hidden from sight, weapons taken, phone taken, ‘ _unhurt’;_ escaping from his restraints, fighting to get into the battered workshop, looking for susceptible spaces to enter, fighting not to call to Sam, not to call to his father, not to draw anyone’s attention and become a helpless hostage himself again, picking the lock, as quiet as he could with a uncontrollable tremor in his hands – and locks were really more Sam’s thing than his --  because he had seen enough brutality before to know that the _monster de jour_ would finish it’s work quicker if it were interrupted, just watched.  Oh fuck, fuck, fuck, what his father had done to Sam.  His father hadn’t come alone, Sam was a man, a big man even if he wasn’t filled out yet, and trained to fight all his life, and for his life, so John brought reinforcements to bring down his own creation.

John had brought three men with him, three grown men, to take on his son who was really just a boy, still lankly and somehow kind, his boy who was lost, angry, vulnerable, what John himself had been twenty two years ago.  It took those men to hold Sam down while John apologized to Sam, begged his forgiveness, explained, why, why, why, because that was all Sam could say _was Dad, Daddy, please, no_ , and, _Dad, why, Daddy  why_? as John watched as Sam was spread out, as one of those men, two, all three took turns defiling Sam while Sam called out _Dad, Daddy, please, no_ , and, _Dad, why, why_ while John pulled Sam’s sac low and cut a vicious looking blade across it, taking it balls and all, cock, balls and all, while John pulled Sam’s right arm to the side and raised a machete, and Sam called out _‘Dean, Dean, help!’_ called out, voice harsh, shrill, shot with terror:  _‘Dean!’_   Dean eventually couldn’t watch, closed his eyes, eventually cried out himself, called to his brother, and eventually drew the attention of his father.

Sam’s back arched, his veins stood out, sweat soaked his body, and he screamed, nothing sensible, just a violent animal terror, violated, hurt, betrayed.  Dean screamed with as terrified, betrayed and violated.  _No, Dad, Sir, no!_   John had the nerve to look at Dean and wipe tears from his own face, while Dean froze, not knowing if he should try to get away himself, wondered – knowing he wasn’t, but no longer being sure – if he was next in line, if John would neuter all his boys like pups to be sent to new homes, break his boys like a nasty little girl with her little toy dolls.

 

_John may have had his reasons, they were good reasons; but not compelling.  John hadn’t even talked to Sam, hadn’t talked it through with Sam, explained what they were up against—if he had known Sam might have submitted willingly.  If he had explained to Sam what Sam was, is, what he could become, Sam might have even done it himself; or done worse, that was what John would have been trying to avoid ‘worse’—if I don’t miss my guess, he might still get it._

_I’m still sitting next to Sam’s hospital bed: ‘tranquilized until he is more stable’; which I believe means:  ‘tranquilized until someone can figure out what to tell the kid’.  Dean made his statement to the police and hasn’t said a word since, just sat beside his brother, won’t even look at me.  Dean knew the lore, I researched the lore for John, it’s just that neither of us thought John capable of this, neither of us talked, really talked, to John about this, problem is that neither of us thought to tell Sam — we didn’t want to deal with ‘worse’._

Dean watches his brother, and doesn’t know what to tell him—he doesn’t need to tell Sam what happened to him, Sam was – after all – there;  he needs to tell Sam what he said to the cops;  because Dean had done something that might have irrevocably broken the tender trust beginning to form between himself and Sam.  Dean had watched in horror, screaming out to his father, to Sam, to anyone who would listen to not do that, not hurt Sam anymore, to make the hurt go away, then Dean had watched as his father, the creature that looked like his father, (it couldn’t be him), watched as that horror easily took down his three companions—ghouls—his dad had whored Sam’s body to ghouls.  Then Dean had let his father walk right out of the door he had busted down to get in, had run to Sam’s side as Sam screamed, staccato monstrous burst of terror and horror and grief.  Dean had held Sam, had stopped the bleeding even though he didn’t want to look and then promised Sam a lie, had promised Sam he was safe now, and had promised Sam what he himself had only hoped, that he would be right back, he would bring help – Sam needed help – and that everything would be alright.  Dean had waited maybe too long, waited until Sam was quiet and breathing uneven but no longer huddled sobbing in his arms, had waited maybe considering the worse thing might be better, considering doing worse – was it worse – than his father had. 

Dean had run down a dirt road, run the direction he thought his gun, his car, his phone, the nearest town were.  Had frightened the day lights and the good lord, and probably the devil too, but no one was looking, out of a couple making out in a car, Dean covered in blood, and looking like the lunatic ex-ax-man, ‘don’t hurt us, are you hurt, who did this, can we help you, let us help you.’  ‘My brother, my brother, he’s hurt.’ Dean says, frantic -- cool, calm, collected gone.  ‘Where are we?  Can you call the cops?  Can you take me back to my brother?’

‘Are you hurt?’  The cops had asked Dean, ‘What did they do to you?  Do you know what happened here?  Do you know who did this to him?’

‘Doesn’t matter,’ says Dean, ‘nothing, no, and no.’ and Dean has broken a delicate trust and Dean needs to tell Sam.

 

_Dean didn’t turn his Dad in, that’s what Jody Mills said, ‘Boy says he doesn’t know who did it.’  I know she doesn’t believe him.  ‘Accomplice after the fact,’ says Jody.  Broken a precious trust, I think that poor boy will loose his mind before the end of the week.  Just another boy John left broken in his wake._

_They wake Sam up, screaming from dreams, from reality, writhing in remembered pain, confusion written all over him.  They wake him up while Dean is away on a mandatory coffee break, half an hour and he has come to, still groggy still confused, looks me in the fucking eye and says ‘Dean? Is Dean ok? Where’s Dean.’  Dean as good as breaks down the door to get to his brother again, reaches for a hand that isn’t there, and then remembers, Sam reaches over with the other one, awkward, clumsy, eyes wide, ‘Dean?’ He looks Dean up and down, ‘they didn’t hurt you did they’ Sam’s voice is still coarse from the enforced quiet of sedation.  Dean shakes his head, still not sure what to do._

The cops come and ask Sam questions; Jody Mills is quiet, but firm, and Sam wants to curl up in her arms and cry, pretend she is the mother he never had to protect him.  He wants to tell her the truth, but he doesn’t.  First, before he answer any questions, first he wants to know if Dean is really ok, and she shouldn’t discuss this, but yes, Dean, is fine, (other than everyone except Sam and Bobby know Dean is in love with his brother – probably because of whatever else that sick man that is their father has done to these boys -- Dean is just fine), banged up, slight concussion, (could have been a lot worse), but just fine.  And no, Sam had no idea why they did this (a nearly honest answer), and he can’t talk about what they did with out retching, and sweating, and shivering, and maybe it’s just too soon for that, and no, he has no idea who did this, he thought there were three of them, maybe four.  Jody doesn’t say the semen found in Sam’s body (Sam wasn’t conscious, the police decided to do the rape kit, and Jody isn’t comfortable with that) matched that of the dead bodies found at the crime scene, bodies that appeared to have been dead longer than made any sense; and she doesn’t say that the severed human body parts were gone.  _Sam’s_ severed body parts Jody reminds herself, this is a crime with a victim, and a perpetrator, and an accomplice after the fact, and love story that is plain old sick; and maybe Bobby is just an old innocent man here, but she doubts that very much.

 

_I hold Sam’s hand when he’s sleeping, it’s uncomfortable, holding his left hand, reminds me of what he is missing, reminds me that he goes to therapy – where he won’t to talk, to physical therapy – where he applies himself and excels, goes to occupational therapy – where he is reaching his goals or some such bull shit. Sam has hormone supplements and bladder control exercises.  Sam’s pelvic floor is healing, Sam still has a catheter in, apparently Dad’s method of castration did more damage than just cutting off Sam’s balls, Sam is off balance, frustrated, angry, we both know we lied, we kept a promise as though that promise was more important than Sam.  And I can’t find a way to tell Sam that what dad says was true. ‘You are a monster Sam, just a broken monster.’  Sam doesn’t try to pull away from me when he wakes up, so I know he is broken._

If Sam had to catch another damn ball left handed he might kill someone—with his left-damn-hand, that would be his only hand, his hand.  Sam could catch the ball by the end of first day, so he fell over with every catch, he’s got that down now, he can run, jump, he can fucking skip, he’s a great candidate for a prostatic, the phantom limb doesn’t hurt, just feels kind of weird, he hopes Dean has damn thing, things, somewhere so they can set fire to them and get the phantom, these phantoms, gone.  Sam can draw left handed, not art, just things, practice letters, has discovered that almost any shirt can come and go over your head, that press studs are just a useful as buttons, and buttons can be dealt with later, and that jacket zippers are a plan of the devil.  The stitches in his crotch from his castration and from his rape bug him, he has a hard time holding still so the doctors can look, he had a hard time when they took the catheter out and he had to toilet himself again; he had to wear diapers, and they are almost impossible to change one handed, and Dean helped him, wordlessly, although almost anything Dean does now is wordlessly.

 

_I hate to dig through Dean’s things, his car, his duffel in the guest room (please no), an old cooler shoved behind the weapons in the trunk, and I’m horrified at what I’m looking for, Sam, would Dean really keep part of Sam packed away.  I hate myself when I confront Dean, what amounts to a rotting mess in a pit I had dug in the yard, destroying evidence, accomplice after the fact.  Dean blurts out ‘but Sam needs those.’ I don’t have the nerve to completely think that John cut Sam’s body up, but he did something worse to Dean’s mind._

The absence of the phantom hand is comforting to Sam, it’s like he is starting to fit into his new body.  The absence of his cock and balls becomes an uncomfortable reality, and he finds himself desiring Dean’s virtually.  Sam can write a scratchy alphabet left handed, he can do fucking back flips (really) he can run easily ten miles on the tread mill, he is starting to hold his urine, most of the time, the stitches are out of his crotch, his anus where they had itched like a bitch, and he hadn’t told anyone because then they would have wanted to look and he couldn’t stand that, nearly fainted when the stitches were pulled, was so shaken eventually the hospital let Dean do it, the culprits aren’t identified, but are identified as being free of any disease other than being very, very, suspiciously dead.  Sam is disgusted by what they did to his body, what they left in his body, is happy that he doesn’t have a cock and balls anymore.

 

_Telling Sam while he was still in the hospital was probably a good idea, he needed to be told, and the hospital was a relatively Dean free space.  Dean could have shared what John had said to Sam, because Sam was shouting, “No, Dad” and “Please no, Daddy.”in his sleep. And Sam has flashbacks.  Hunters get PTSD, its part of the deal we make, Sam has something worse.  I nearly blew the carefully constructed bullshit the boys had put together.  Accomplice to an accomplice after the fact.  I nearly blew it because Sam, raw with betrayal, flayed open by grief kept saying as I told him the lore, ‘Dad wouldn’t, wasn’t really him…’ and ‘Dean didn’t know, would a have said…’ and ‘You knew’ voice saturated with accusation, ‘You knew, and you didn’t tell me?’ and ‘Dad couldn’t have…’ and I really need him to stop saying the first thing and the last thing, because even though we are huddled together on his bed, me holding his good hand, my other hand resting of his amputated arm just above the stump ‘the remaining limb’, our foreheads together, him leaning into my space, they have cameras here, and we don’t want to destroy their careful lie, although for god’s sakes I don’t know why they did it._

_Sam comes home; he comes home from hospital, from rehab and home to Dean.  I’m, I may be, old, but I’m not all that stupid and Dean is home for Sam, more so now that they have a secret bigger than before, and secret the doesn’t include me._

 

Jody Mills looks at the video of Bobby telling Sam something, huddled close to Sam hiding some other part  of this story from the camera, something terrifying—and how could that boy be more frightened—and something sad, Sam is so sad, Jody wishes the boy had a mother, someone to be on his side in this mess.  Jody Mills calls, ‘just checking up on Sam.’ By which she means just checking up on Dean.  The boys spend hours together—endless hours, too many hours.  First Sam, unable to believe Bobby, unable to believe that his whole family hid this from him, researching desperately what monster it could be that took his father’s form, and eventually Dean guiding Sam—leading him by his remaining hand—back to the harsh truth—that the monster was John, really John, really Sam’s Daddy. 

Eventually Sam’s question of ‘why, why, why’ is answered.  Dean sits patiently stroking Sam’s hair back as Sam recoils at the thought of being a monster, at the thought of being the chosen of the Devil himself—at the thought—and Dean can’t believe this either, says ‘no, that can’t be true, that isn’t true’ at the thought that their mother, their mother the hunter, had sold Sam to the devil in exchange for John.  John’s life for Sam’s soul.   Sam for his part wishes he had a choice.  She had no right—Dean tells himself, and that can’t be true—but here is Sam’s wounded body saying that the Devil had taken John’s mind and Sam’s body in the deal.  Dean strokes Sam’s hair back from his face and say’s ‘you aren’t a monster, you’re my brother’, and the ‘devil can’t have you, you’re mine’ what Dean doesn’t say is “Dad gave you to me, he had no right to do harm to you, he gave you to me.”

_I watch those boys become closer, and they began already too close—John as good as gave Sam to Dean as a baby.  Dean holding Sam’s hand as he leads Sam to his first grade class—explaining that Sam missed kindergarten because of their Dad had…and Dean would fill in whatever lie was concocted for the day. Dean holding Sam’s hand as he leads Sammy across the road, Dean’s hand set over Sam’s as he taught Sam to write, Dean steadying a ten year old Sam’s hand on the smallest colt Dean can dig out of the Impala’s trunk._

_Dean helps Sam well past what Sam needs.  Dean teaches Sam to write again, holds Sam’s unsteady left with his own unsteady left hand, teaches Sam to shoot again—like he did the first time, only this time Sam sights out of his left eye; Sam submits to Dean’s lessons, as though he never knew any of these things, as though these things aren’t a change to him, but a mysterious new life.   Dean builds Sam again like he built Sam the first time when I wasn’t watching and John wouldn’t watch, when we were just relieved that the boys were tight with each other, relieved that they had someone.  Now Sam holds tight to Dean and I worry that they will drown together, that those two fools want to drown together, and I’m the only one who actually gives a damn.  I don’t say anything, and I wonder if I am some sort of accomplice to this relationship that was brothers, brothers too close for comfort, but none the less brothers the first time, this is different.  Dean changed Sam when Sam was a baby, cleaned him up, taught him how to pee standing, and now follows Sam to the bath room, ‘I’m ok in here Dean.’  Followed by cursing, followed by ‘It’s ok Dean you can come in.’ This time I am an accomplice to what these brother’s share and I can’t bear to take it from them.  I close my eyes and go outside, I can’t think about how Dean is touching Sam._

 

Sam reads incessantly, with Dean and without him, he stops taking the medication to make him sleep, it’s as though he can’t rest anymore, as though there is some mystery, a final piece that he needs to know, a final thing that needs to be done before he can begin to put this to rest.  Dean, when he can’t stand to be indoors any longer tinkers, fiddles, makes things in the workshop, his hands as busy as Sam’s mind, busy for both of them.  Dean can’t stand to be far from Sam, watches the door, Sam won’t make it past him, Sam won’t make it to worse, Sam still has that one good hand, and there is no way to keep guns away from him in this house.  Sam for his part reads, he stops using the prosthesis, and he stops toileting himself, he wears diapers and lets Dean change him.  And he reads.   Bobby knows he should call someone for help, but who the hell do you call for something like this.  Sheriff Mills keeps calling supposedly with updates, but really to see if Bobby, if the boys, will give her something, anything;  to see if Sam will give her Dean, or if Dean will give up the father.  Bobby will protect those boys, they might not be his blood, but she watches them, she knows they are his life; Sheriff Mills knows not to mess with that.  Sheriff Mills also knows that the salvage yard has enough ammunition to stop, or start, the apocalypse and she had better be damn sure before she starts something, and she wishes there was a way she could have Bobby on her side, because he clearly loves those boys, and what ever piece of weird shit he is into, he had better be doing something to help Sam.

Eventually Sam finds the pieces what he needs, the pieces of gruesome majick forged to protect him, and he reads it to himself, he puts it all together and writes it down, painstakingly, he knows what his father did, and he knows why for himself—not that he didn’t believe Dean—but Dean had always trusted their father, and Sam had never trusted their father before this.  Now Dean won’t call their ‘Dad’ or ‘Sir’, he spits out his name, ‘John’ like it was the name of the devil himself, the one who came for Sam.  Sam writes the whole story out, the whole why, with a shaky left hand, and Dean comes in, gives Sam a present, and Sam smiles, and for the moment it seems alright.  The gift, the hand, steal and silver, nothing like the plastic and titanium the hospital had given Sam; forged steal, heated to perfection in a forge made for weapons, not art, and the most delicate silver, more intricate, than Sam had known Dean could make—Sam, from where he is sitting on the floor, reaches up, reaches his truncated arm and wraps around Dean’s neck where Dean is crouched in front of him, and pulls Dean in for a soft sip of his brother’s lips.  Dean would pull back in surprise, but this moment has seemed inevitable for 22 years, and Dean takes a sip of his own, then unwinds the stump of Sam’s arm from his neck, and runs a thumb over the scaring, while Sam looks, stares, at Dean’s face, flickers of a smile crossing over his own face as Dean touches the pink lines of skin wrapped around a space where there shouldn’t be one, then Dean raises the scarring to his mouth and kisses it.  They wait a second, a few moments, a few beats, catch their breath, try to understand what just happened.  Dean slips the hand onto Sam’s arm and Sam smiles at Dean, then buries himself in Dean’s chest.  Sam doesn’t cry in Dean’s arms like he maybe should, but he submerges himself in Dean, clings to Dean with the old hand and the new, and maybe he can start getting better.  Days are better, Sam working more slowly at his research, sharing it with Dean quietly, sometimes letting Dean write for him, and Dean hammers and welds less frantically in the workshop, working on some less urgent but equally meticulous project. 

Dean reads Sam’s notes, and he wishes they didn’t say what they do.  John had been right, to keep Sam from the Devil, the Devil that Sam’s Mother had traded him to, Sam needed to be defiled, purified, and sanctified; unclean, beautiful, and untouchable.  Sam read that story, that last story, over and over, and Dean wrote it down for Sam.  Dean and Sam don’t talk about it, Dean’s Mom, his Mommy, his home, his peace, his safe, his loved, beloved Mother sold little Sam to the Devil, and she had no right, Sam belongs to Dean, even before he was born Sam belonged to Dean.

 

One evening over dinner Sam declares, “I forgive him.”  Even Dean looks startled. 

 

_None of us knows what to do; fetching a beer or two isn’t going to solve this one.  I eat my steak, no point in wasting food.  We wait for something to change the facts. Dean sets down his knife and fork, he had been using to cut Sam’s meat, wipes Sam’s mouth with a napkin, stands up straight from where he had been leaning over Sam.  Sam stares at his plate.  Dean sets down the napkin, picks up his beer, says:  ‘Sam, you can forgive him or not, I don’t care, but he had no right to watch you raped, castrate you and cut your arm off.  John had no right to touch you.  What you do with your body Sam, it should be your choice – it’s always your choice.’  Dean walks out into the stars, and the salvage yard. Sam follows._

_Its more than I’ve heard Dean say since they came home, its the first time I’ve heard either of them admit to what was done to Sam, let alone that John did it._

No way I expected Bobby Fisher to call me--maybe the old duffer isn’t an accomplice after the mess after all.  “Dean says John did it.”  Not so much as a hello, or a how are you Sheriff Mills, but “Dean and Sam, both of them, said John did it.”  Then he doesn’t say anything more.  I don’t say anything because what am I meant to say?  ‘That’s good, now let’s go find and book the mad man?’  Dean is still an accomplice, Sam is barely not an accomplice, Bobby had changed his mind about being an accomplice -  probably – unless Dean really did it and the old man is covering for Dean.    Maybe he did it, it’s not like there has even been a clear story about what happened to his wife, according to the previous sheriff the whole town thought he did in his own Dad.  All of them have a screw or two loose, a sandwich short of a picnic, card short of a deck, every last one of them. Still, someone is talking so it’s a start.  Bobby hangs up, without so much as a ‘good to have talked to you,’ or ‘Have a nice day, Sheriff Mills’, or ‘Here, let me help you catch this one Jody, make up for some of the problems we might have caused around here.’

_I swallow another shot of whiskey and wait for my boys to show up, like they always do in the end. I hear the sound of Dean in his workshop finishing up his project, I know that Sam is nearby, waiting for him to be done.  I’m an old man, and maybe whiskey doesn’t always serve me well, and I may have nodded off, because I was going to be waiting for a while, but my boys always come back, but suddenly Dean is standing on the door step smelling of whiskey and steel.  Sam was meant to be with Dean.  There is something off about Dean, for starters there is something off about his not being with Sam, and Dean’s scared, but he’s not panicked.  I can’t even figure out if worse has happened and Dean is genuinely confused, or if  Sam came to his senses and fled into the night, helpless and mutilated, or if Dean knows something, or, let it not be this, John is back and is finishing what he started.  I call Jody back before Dean can stop me, because Sam needs to be found, before we are done with our Midwestern hellos police frequency crackles though with a 911 for a young man hit on the train tracks, left arm amputation. “To match the damn right.” I mumble to myself.  “Dammit,” Jody says and hangs up.  I wish I had made a bonfire of those books rather than letting Sam read them, let him believe his Daddy was a madman rather than let him believe that chopping himself to bits and pieces was the way to salvation.  For the record, if there is one, John Winchester is a mad man and if social services had taken the boys they would have been doing them a favor.  But I’d miss them._

 

Bobby is muttering about Sam being a fool as he and Dean wait outside the ER, waiting for news about how badly Sam has hurt himself, waiting for news if Sam is going to live in the first place (worse, this is all part of the worse that should never have happened), waiting to see what psyche ward Sam is going to be spending a very long time living in; waiting to see if Sam.  Dean doesn’t even pace, just stands, occasionally runs a hand over his face.  Bobby talks to Sheriff Mills.  The nurses suggested they go home and get some rest. Sam is out of surgery, but they can’t see him yet, he’s in the ICU, he went deeply into shock, didn’t have a pulse when he was picked up.  Dean is shaking, Bobby puts a steadying hand out, there is no use in attempting a conversation; Bobby thinks Dean probably won’t talk ever again.  Bobby’s mind wanders to how much help Sam will need; at how Dean will be there to wordlessly help him, at how psyche will release Sam into Dean’s care, and how he won’t do anything to stop any of it.

Sheriff Mills, against her own better judgment, lets Bobby and Dean visit Sam, she looks up Stockholm syndrome, and mind control, looks up cults and family cults, and myths, and amputation, and she finds what she needs.  She tries not to think about how a boy’s mother could have sold him to the devil, how a boy’s family could believe that their mother was so evil, and that the boy was the Devil’s own, about how Sam’s family could butcher him. She looks up a list of warrants with John Winchester’s name, and Dean’s name, and some with Sam’s name.  That poor boy needed a mother, is what she thinks to herself, what he got instead was Dean.  She wonders why the devil came for Sam’s mother: Did she change her mind?  Did she want Sam back? Did she try to save Sam?  She reminds herself that sometimes you have got to make do. She will arrest John the next time he thinks of coming to town, near town. Dean she leaves be, lets Bobby know she knows, lets Bobby she has her eyes on Dean, he gruffly informs her no need, Dean has Sam to look after, that’s all Dean will do. She asks one of the tech guys to erase Sam’s file, no questions asked, might be a bonus involved, she’s never done anything like that before and looks over her shoulder, literally looks over her shoulder, as she leaves the Sherriff Depot that evening and leaves an envelope on the front seat of a young man’s car.  Later, after Sam and Dean are gone, Sam officially missing, Dean just into the night, she tries not to think about throwing an amputated arm that should have been booked, at least photographed, as evidence into a furnace—salt and burn, and she’s not doing Bobby a favor, he’s at least a lunatic, and probably still a murderer, she’s doing it for the boy.  She tries not to remember the pieces that Bobby allowed her to read, left sitting out, when he knew she was coming over to look at ‘Sam and Dean’s’ room, not to think of that room and it’s one bed, not to think of what Bobby let her find in Sam’s journal left laying open, because she can’t bear to think how broken that boy must be.  She doesn’t notice any book burning that Bobby might later have done.  She can’t let go of how far Dean will go for Sam, and leaves another envelope on a young man’s car seat. Accomplice.

 

_I shouldn’t have left the whole thing unattended; but Sam wasn’t really helpless, not the way the hospital sees it. Jody Mills knows something, forgotten or forgiven something, because the record only states that Sam ran from the psyche ward only a three days after his ‘suicide attempt’.  It doesn’t state that he left slipping his restrains like a ghost sliding into his brother’s car – and it doesn’t state that the security video was accidentally destroyed at the Sheriff’s office.  It doesn’t state that Dean left town, Dean who had been a suspect when Sam was first mutilated, Dean that I was an alibi for this time around – even though he wasn’t home when the accident happened, wasn’t home until it was called in, and both he and I know that – Dean who finished up the last touches on that second beautiful forged steel and filigree silver hand he had been making, matched to the first, that evening. He must have finished up with Sam watching.  Not that I told Jody about that hand. I read what was in Sam’s notes, let Jody read them, so maybe she could understand that this is about love, and it may not be a love that either she or I understand, but it can’t be stopped, before I burnt them with precious old books, salted and burned his journal like it was part of Sam, and hoped we got rid of this curse, hoped we could be finished, because the only other thing left to do about it is worse – and I know Dean won’t do it._

 


End file.
